Page 180 of Fake it ’Til Fall

“I’ve been here enough.”

“Visiting cousins and surviving holidays does not count. Winterberry is different when it knows your middle name, and the year you got bangs.”

“What year?”

“Classified.”

“Bad?”

“Historic.”

His mouth does the almost-smile thing.

I point at him. “Do not enjoy my hair trauma.”

“I’m not.”

The corner of his mouth moves again.

I hate how much I love catching that tiny almost. It is not even a smile. It is smile-adjacent. Smile-curious. A smile standing on the porch, considering whether it wants to come inside. I am apparently a woman who has developed a craving for emotional crumbs from a former hockey player with an attitude problem and an excellent dog.

Growth is weird.

Forrest turns onto the road leading toward the Thorn vineyard, and my stomach performs a small, unpaid circus act.

He notices.

Of course he does.

“You’re doing the breathing thing,” he says.

“I breathe every day. It’s one of my more consistent habits.”

“Day?”

“I’m fine.”

He gives me a glance.

“Fine-adjacent,” I amend.

Another look.

“Fine with litigation pending.”

He faces the road again. “We can turn around.”

I laugh because the alternative is crying or kissing him, and both seem poorly timed. “We can’t turn around. My mother has sixteen vendor check-ins, a seating chart with three emotional fault lines, a bride who thinks vow placement requires a committee, and a community dinner that has somehow become a donor event, a coaching interview, and a small-town referendum on whether you are scary.”

“I’m scary.”

“You’re grumpy.”

“I’ve been scary.”

I look at him.

His profile is set, jaw firm, eyes on the road, the town reflected in the windshield. He looks the way he always does when he says something true and expects it to cost him.